


Paradise/War Zone

by Coraleeveritas



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-09
Updated: 2017-07-09
Packaged: 2018-11-29 21:19:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11449239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Coraleeveritas/pseuds/Coraleeveritas
Summary: Brienne challenges Jaime to a Nerf battle. Loser cooks dinner.





	Paradise/War Zone

**Author's Note:**

  * For [openmouthwideeye](https://archiveofourown.org/users/openmouthwideeye/gifts).



> Several months ago I asked the ladies of JBO to prompt me for my writing anniversary, and although that was back in May I'm just starting to complete those fics now. This is the first, from openmouthwideye, who prompted me with a picture of the note that appears in the story (I'm so inept, I have no idea how to link pictures!)
> 
> Thank you to the utterly wonderful Sandwiches, who is not only an incredible author but a really great friend. And thank you to RoseHeart, who is always there when I need her, whether it be for fic stuff or when life gets me down.
> 
>  
> 
> Anything you recognise doesn't belong to me. The title is from Pillowtalk, as this got a little sexier than I was expected (though I'm holding off on the real smut for now)

Closing the car door with a gentle tap, Jaime started to dig in his jacket pocket for the tell tale jangle of a golden lion key ring, noticing how eerily quiet the street was around him. Getting caught up in the city's rush hour exodus had pushed his journey further into the evening than he would have liked, stationary lines of commuters making him wonder whether he should drop by the place Brienne had liked so much from her birthday celebration last month, knowing she wouldn't have started dinner without him. Though the ongoing tedium of traffic, checking and re-checking the radio for accident updates, made Jaime forget the conversation they'd had with the owner about closing for summer renovations.

She was no great beauty, his wife, but it had been a long time since a day had gone by without Jaime thinking himself lucky to have Brienne in his life. Maybe things would have been different had he not chosen to spill his secrets one drunken night back when they were still in the fragile stage of moving from deep seated hatred to something resembling mutual respect, Brienne quietly listening to truths he had long buried like she was waiting out a passing storm before considering the damage it had left behind. Jaime found a new appreciation for her burgeoning friendship that night, when she accepted that just because he'd seen the end justifying the means didn't automatically make him the man their colleagues had claimed. But his flicker of fond feeling had only been the tip of a near invisible iceberg and it was only months later, when fate intervened, that he was hit with the depth of his attachment to Brienne in one fell swoop.

He didn't see the drunk driver careening up the freeway until it was too late, slamming hard on the brakes of the rental car, hundreds of miles from home and facing down the loss of life and limb, though he worried more for the woman who'd slipped from consciousness as soon as the ambulance had arrived. The following 48 hours had been among some of the worst he'd ever experienced, not knowing that being separated from Brienne by surgeries to set his smashed wrist and her need for constant observation would pain him so much. By the time he'd finally been allowed out of the ICU, Jaime was so relieved to see that she was bandaged and bruised but awake that the first words out of his mouth were 'I love you.'

It all seemed like a fading nightmare now, the crashing catalyst that brought them together, better memories like exchanged vows and exhausting encounters under a purpling Yi Ti sky or buying land in the country to build a home from the ground up pushing it further back in his mind. Smiling to himself as he wandered up their garden path, Jaime recalled the time he'd persuaded Brienne into midnight skinny dipping on Tarth, ignoring the sound of barking dogs to pick up the sign stuck to the front door.

'Husband,

Welcome home. I'm hiding in the house with a Nerf gun. Here is the other one...

The loser cooks dinner tonight.

May the odds be ever in your favour.

xoxo

Wife'

Jaime stared at the note for a moment longer, glancing between the page in his hand and the propped up Nerf gun hiding chipped, dark blue paint, waiting until his confusion was replaced by a overwhelming sensation of delight. They may have known each other for nearly half a decade at that point, and been married for coming up three years, but Brienne never failed to keep surprising him.

Shrugging out of his coat even before he'd turned the key in the lock, Jaime picked up the toy, immediately falling into a well practiced stance. Both he and Brienne still took part in regular paintball team tournaments, corporate partners at work encouraging such things as a way of promoting team building and leadership, so strategy and tactics weren't going to be an advantage for either of them. And though Brienne might have had the upper hand with planning, hiding and timing on her side, he expected that she would be as honourable as ever when it came to making the metaphorical killing blow.

He quickly swept through the living room like he was starring in a police procedural, checking behind the sofa twice as it was the only place big enough to shield her frame from view. The coffee table he'd encouraged her into splurging on was glass, after all, so it wasn't as if she could be waiting under there. The next logical place to check seemed to be the hallway closet, a space usually guarded by one of the dogs, but it was just as meticulously organised as ever. Stalking through the empty kitchen, gun raised, Jaime barely paused before stepping out into the near wilderness they called a garden, three small dogs following behind with tails wagging.

He'd just finished surveying the shed Brienne had put together one Sunday last summer, letting him pretend to sunbathe as he watched her work while her t-shirt started to stick deliciously to her skin, when he was popped in the ass with a Nerf ball, another one smacking into his shoulder as Jaime spun around to glare at the second and third stories of their home. He could hear the muffled sound of her laughter, clearly having ducked down when he turned to attempt retaliation. She was rarely this carefree, preferring to stubbornly stick to her kinder, selfless ideals, but Jaime couldn't help throughly enjoying each and every occasion when the more competitive aspect of her personality came out to play, pleasantly surprising him whenever Brienne brought that dynamic to their well used bed.

As distracted as he was by the thought of what they could get up to later, Jaime took aim at the biggest open window, Brienne's laughter quickly being replaced by the muffled sound of unexpected exclamation as he carelessly wasted his limited supply of ammunition, watching the balls bounce into the house.

Ducking and diving back the way he'd come, avoiding the handful of shots Brienne had recovered enough to let off, Jaime took a minute to catch his breath before a plan sprang to mind. And maybe if they both ran out of ammo at about the same time, he could persuade her that a tie meant they could order in rather than having to run through either of their limited cooking skill sets. When they'd first met, Brienne was still in the habit of burning her sensible slow release fruit and oat breakfast, though that was often due to him using mornings to perfect argumentative distraction techniques, and he was so used to having a chef on call that cooking anything was like learning a foreign language.

Sliding his shoes off took up precious seconds, but his bare feet would be better for staying silent while creeping up the back staircase even if he knew which steps to avoid so Brienne couldn't anticipate the direction he was coming from. An ambush was far more likely if he tried to take the more direct route to her.

At least one of the dogs was still in the garden from the sounds trickling in with the last rays of evening sun, retrieving the balls that had been left behind on the grass. Brienne was talking to them from above, giving Jaime a chance to even things up and start a second round attack while she was distracted. He remembered to exhale as he aimed at the curve of her hip, gently squeezing the trigger only for the toy to immediately jam, his not so quiet curses providing Brienne with just enough time to prepare, spinning around ready to give as good as she got.

"It seems that your plan wasn't all that-oof," Jaime drawled as he caught another bit of bad luck, knocked from his feet by the smallest of their dogs at the same time Brienne's shot smacked him right in the solar plexus. He tried to fight gravity and throw himself towards the bed, but landed on the wooden floor with a heavy thud instead. His bruises were probably going to have their own bruises in the morning, he thought as Brienne dropped to her knees to coo over a visibly trembling chihuahua while he caught his breath.

"So that's what it takes to get a little attention around here," Jaime grumbled, not caring one iota about the audible, almost jealous, sulk in his tone. "I just need to grow an extra couple of legs."

He could see Brienne rolling her eyes as she placed the pup on the bed, the pair of them watching him suffer. "Gods, you're such a baby," she muttered just under her breath, already starting to crawl over to him, blushing furiously as he carefully studied the subtle sway of her shoulders and hips. "Are you okay, Jaime?"

"No," he replied. "I think you might need to kiss it better."

"Only if you're sure that's what you want," she sighed. "But you're going to have to show me where it hurts."

"Oh," Jaime grinned, liking the small, brief smile that flirted with her lips as an idea took hold. "I know exactly where you can start. I'm getting a terrible headache."

"Really?" she asked, frowning at the admission of pain. "You did take a nasty bang, Jaime. Maybe we should take you to the emergency room and get it checked out."

"Wouldn't be the first time."

Her frown deepened, the playfulness that had sparked for a second gone in the blink of an eye. "All the more reason you should see a doctor."

"I just want you," he promised. "It's been a long day and I just want my wife."

"I'm not medically qualified."

"I'm counting on that," Jaime smiled suggestively, patting the stain on the carpet next to him where they'd spilled paint the second time Brienne had suggested redecorating. "Are you going to be this bad if we ever decide to have an actual baby? With every bump and bruise?"

"We haven't talked enough about that for it not to be a hypothetical scenario," she corrected. "You're not, you're here and I don't want to lo...I haven't changed my mind since I said I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you."

"Come here and make me feel better then, love. If I'm still achey in the morning, I'll call the doctor then."

Her reply was made of the softest of whispers. "You better."

"When did I ever lie to you, Brienne?" he purred, trying to push himself up to his elbows, though the weight of her strong and steady hand on his chest reversed the motion with ease. Jaime exhaled as he relaxed into a more comfortable position, happily surrendering to his fate when it meant he could spend more time just gazing into the oceanic depths lurking behind Brienne's blonde lashes. "I mean, I told you on our first date that we were going to live happily ever after."

"Stop being melodramatic," she grumbled, finally pressing her chapped lips to his temple in a repeated act of soothing appeasement. Jaime moaned, unable to stop himself voicing the pleasure that came with Brienne having to straddle him to be able to continue kissing a fond path across his forehead. Each touch seemed to be full of a silent apologies that he'd been hurt during what should have been a friendly game, however slightly, but if he was being honest, he couldn't really think of a better ending than the one being presented to him in that moment.

"You also told me that I was the ugliest woman you'd ever seen," Brienne reminded him, breaking Jaime out of his happy daze.

"I think I remember that cab ride home more than anything else," he admitted, his next request for attention whispering over the scars covering her otherwise beautifully blushing cheek. "If I'd known a need to shut me up would lead to that heated a make out session, I would have thought about putting a little more effort into winding you up. Harder. Longer, maybe."

"Shut up." She forgot to fight her smile while he helped her remove the blue button down he'd stolen out of her side of the closet that morning, exposing the musculature toned by hours he'd enjoyed out in the wilds surrounding their home, climbing and running and swimming.

Jaime heard her breath catch like it always did after she undressed him, like Brienne couldn't quite believe she didn't have to give him back to whatever God had sculpted him from bronze and gold, which couldn't be further from the truth. And while he was still wrapped up in the pride that came from surprising his wife, her lips came crashing down to meet his own. Her hair slid through his fingers when he tried to guide her movements, thin strands but still just soft enough from a shower hours ago for him to want to bury his face in it when she dropped her head to decorate his sore shoulder with butterfly kisses, the ache from bruises recently formed already easing.

On another day, this would be the gentlest of foreplay, and his cock was certainly wondering about how they could move things along, but he didn't mind too much when Brienne climbed off him without further preamble, her lips branding his shoulder one last time before she stretched out on the floor at his side, taking immediate advantage of the extra space to wrap him up in her arms.

"You could have kept going," he murmured into her neck teasingly, tongue darting out to taste the cluster of freckles under her ear that had long been his favourites of all the speckled constellations decorating her body. "And if you really didn't want to cook tonight, I'd take my winnings in kisses."

Brienne's nose crinkled in confusion. "You retired hurt, I thought that meant I win by default."

"I got taken out by one of your puppy minions, which counts as cheating, so I win."

"No, you didn't," she retorted, glancing up at the pup in question who was now fast asleep and snoring on Jaime's pillow.

"My gun jammed," he pointed out. "Tampering with the toys has to be against the rules." 

"I didn't..." Brienne replied, trailing off as her blue eyes began to blaze, the playfulness wrapping around his words, causing his fingers to dance down her side to play with the hem of her shirt, not quite enough to offset the gentle wounding of her honour. "A bad workman always blames his tools."

"Do you want to show me your bruises?" he breathed, barely changing the subject while matching the surprisingly soft syllables that were reaching his ears. "It would only be fair."

"You can see perfectly well from here."

"Not the ones on your ass I can't," he said, deliberately licking his lips until Brienne's returning blush had overwhelmed every inch of skin in his sight. "You must have some marks in other places as well I could help you with."

"Maybe," she squeaked after a second of heated silence, arching into his still roaming hand. "So...r-rematch tomorrow night?"

"It's a date."

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!


End file.
